Rachel Young is an associate professor and director of undergraduate studies in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication, University of Iowa. Her mixed-methods research explores the complex effects of media on health. She uses textual analysis, interviews, content analysis, and experiments to understand media representations of health and their effect on audiences. She has also explored how adolescents and parents manage digital media use to protect against health risks and encourage benefits.

Current research projects include a national survey of and interviews with health journalists to explore how roles and practices reflect major changes to the news media landscape and growing awareness of health stigma and disparities. A series of experiments explores the unintended effects of health messaging on stigma toward people who use drugs and other groups. Rachel is also trained as a facilitator for digital storytelling, an approach to creating meaningful personal videos that she has used in her health research with community groups.

Young has also won college, university, and national teaching awards for her work in the classroom, where she applies inclusive strategies for discussion, assignments, and assessment to support learning for all students. Her strategic communication courses connect professional skills to real-world issues through community engagement. To that end, Young launched the Coralville Media Collaborative (CMC) to pair community organizations with SJMC students who create communication plans and multimedia stories focused on local needs and solutions.

Prior to joining the UI faculty, Young had more than a decade of professional experience as a health and science writer/editor for a variety of publications and organizations, including the American Medical Association and Cricket Magazine Group.